Tuesday, March 25, 2008

"How Ya Like Them Apples?"

- is the title for my latest oil painting. This is the largest work I've ever done; the canvas is 2x3 feet, and I covered every part of that sucker with paint!

The assignment was to choose any kind of noun or thing as a figure and paint it 16 times - differently. My choice was an apple, because I was eating an apple while trying to figure out what my figure should be. (I'm really good at critical thinking).

In each of the 16 sections, the figure should be painted according to certain guidelines from the assignment sheet, but you can paint in any order as you wish. For example: number 7 on the assignment sheet tells you to paint one section with the figure with one color, and then the background a complementary color; my number 7 section is on the bottom left. Another example would be number 8 on the assignment sheet; you're supposed to use texture in the section. In my number 8 section (top left), I used an actual popsicle stick and painted over it.

For my second oil painting ever, I'm satisfied with it. I could've done better as far as cleaning up the edges a bit, and some of the backgrounds could've had a bit more thought put into them.

Interesting. Lately, I've been looking into artists who did "compartmentalized" canvases. You should check out Stuart Davis( whom I absolutely love), Georges Braque and, of course, Warhol. They all did a lot in this vein. (It's more than cubism - it's an approach to composition.) When you look at their stuff, ask yourself what makes it so powerful, then look at yours, and ask yourself what you will do differently next time you do this kind of thing. That is how we continue to improve. Yes, you have to move paint frequently, but you have to think. A lot. If you don't think, you have not much to say.